Ruger1

Trebarker, Bowfanatic;

I see so far you have not responded to the primary issue of the writing. You completely missed the issue of FAIRNESS. The misinformation accusation is easy.

I have no affiliation with ANY organization, and I am NOT looking for favoring any weapon over the other. That is the very condition that we are currently operating under right now. I did notice you picked apart what you wanted and then called the rest finger pointing(or misinformed), then proceded to try to make the issue a single weapon issue(slanted againist firearms, no less - Gosh I wonder why you did that?). I and many other firearms hunters are not as misinformed as you might believe.

I as well have done the meetings, asked questions and done the foot work and presented data. It wouldn' t surprise me if they trashed canned the issues, they have before(IMO).

Now for some information. I used to chair Commissions myself - not game commissions but other commissions (Planning and Zoning). Please don' t respond to this with a that' s different, I assure you the responsibilities are the same - the tasks are different, and it is ALL done for public service. Both situations are ruled by parlamentry procedure and subject to open meetings law. I sat on the commission for years and chaired also. I think it is exteremely irresponssible for ANY person serving on a commission to ignore or throw away isuues(as you suggested) and data just because they might be contencious. When your duty is regulatory/ judiciary(as the game commission is) you have the responsibility to address ALL presented issues AND RESPOND to the person with the inquiry, and that is not being done. But that seems to be a way of life here, just like all the unanimous votes with little or no discussion to go along with the lack of data. You can call it fingerpointing and you can call it being misinformed, but when I see the lack of data and all the unanimous votes - there' s absolutly no guessing about who in informed and who is not. Now let me inform you from experience and make no mistake about it, the lack of data and unanimous votes IS A RUBBER STAMP PROCESS, and THAT is very disturbing!!

One other thing, I DON' T make threats or inuendoes. I state things exactly the way I see it and I DON' T beat around the bush. These are gentlemen' s discussions and we can always agree to disagree, and I would like to now offer that to you. What I don' t need is dressed down by YOU on this site or anywhere else because YOU missed the primary issue.

By the way, you guys seem to be very familar with what is going on inside the KDWP. Are you members of the KBA also?

Dave

Ruger1

We gotta have a talk about this ....

Trebarker says;

Have helped a friend skin out capes at his taxidermy shop years ago and found .22 slugs in necks and skulls.

Using you mentality, lets hope some kid walking to school in Unit 19 doesnt have his head blown off by a orangeman shooting a 7mm mag. two blocks away at a running deer that is being chased by the neighborhood pack of dogs.

First of all, I want to thank the guy that made this post. I proves exactly what started this thread in the first place by NoMercy. This is EXACTLY the misguided, closed minded BS that is prevelent in much of the KDWP and the GAME commission (IMO). Extremely willing to use fabrication and poaching as examples to keep the firearms hunters " under the thumb" and also to close more areas to centerfire firearms on fabricated " saftey" issues. Beside that, who' s to say the above examples didn' t happen in the archery season on archery tags. You really don' t want to get me started on this tit for tat game.

Secondly, Trebarker, I really don' t believe you or Bowfanatic either one is serouis at all about any kind firearms hunting. I base this solely on the kinds of things you guys are posting. So please, STOP trying to get me to believe you " feel our pain" or that you have our best interest in mind.

Thirdly Trebarker, you are very quick to admonish people for some of the things they are doing on this site. You admonished me as being uninformed and MarkIIVT for one of his posts. May I suggest to you that charity starts at home.

Let' s Please not have anymore posts like that. These do no good and ends up damaging us all.

Dave

BOWFANATIC

First , welcome to the boards!


Am I missing something here? Threats? Inuendos? Who was attempting to " dress you down" on here?
I believe the " primary issue" here was an individuals feelings towards losing some hunting days from an extended season? Then it somehow turned into a bowhunters -vs- gunhunters thread and I did indeed respond to someone who was indeed misinformed. I' m not sure where your coming from here or what exactly it was that got your goat enough to sign up and post. Please explain , because if it does have anything to do with bowhunters having a longer season than gunhunters I' ll be more than happy to discuss this issue. As I said above , I do both.

Trebarker

Ruger Dave,

My reply to the issue of fairness is: There is no issue of fairness IMO, each hunter has the option to hunt any of the seasons they want, just grab the weapon for that season and go. The seasons and the number of tags sold are set up to control the number of deer harvested each year, it is a management process not a fairness decision.

I read the entire letter you posted. Within the letter, all it does is bad mouth the commissioners and KDWP decisions, bowhunters, and KBA. It does nothing to positively promote your desires or wishes. " It is no secret certain bowhunters would certainly like to abolish the centerfire firearms season in this state" KBA has no such desire, nor do I or any of my friends that hunt. I don' t doubt there are some narrow minded self serving attitudes among archers, landowners, petaphiles, tree huggers etc. in Kansas that would like to abolish rifle season. You point specifically at bowhunting as your enemy, that is what I meant about finger pointing. " It also reflects how out of touch this commission is on firearms issues" . Dr Warner, one of the commissioners flamed the hardest in the letter for suggesting slug only, is a firearm season hunter as are other commissioners. Dr Warner scoffed at the idea of centerfire within the city limits of major metro areas where it is illegal to discharge a weapon in the first place and stated it would not be advisable to be shooting high powered rifles in residential neighborhoods. His comments were not derogatory against centerfire hunters, his comments were aimed at the obvious lack of thought put into establishing the planned Unit 19 hunt. Talk to the commissioners and KDWP staff one on one, find out how and why things are done the way they are. Don' t judge the KBA until you know what all they do and are about, that is what I meant by uninformed. Comm. Carpenter, who bow and rifle hunts, stated he would not want to bowhunt while guns were being used at the same time, a personal choice of his. Obviously he has had witnessed some of the less ethical hunters hunt, and feels he would be in danger. He did not say that all gun users are unsafe. " The only thing you seem to interested in is pandering to the KBA" . Please enlighten us how they have pandered to the KBA? Bow season has not increased in length in the 15 yrs. I have hunted in it. I can get one buck tag a year like everyone else. I can get left over tags, and game tags, just like you can. KBA wanted the T-Tags tied to the land that was used to apply for the tag to prevent landowners with zero deer habitat from getting the tags meant to supposedly address overpopulation complaints. Their wish was ignored and the regulations were written to require the tags will be valid in the applicant' s home county and one adjacent county(why they didn' t say 4-5 county is obvious). This is hardly pandering to the KBA wishes only. " Best example is the issue a couple of years ago when you did away with regulations for pull weight, draw length and let off requirements for bows." This was not requested by the KBA, nor by experienced bowhunters, it was requested by the same people who refused to use primitive BP weapons and got modern weapons approved instead, who do not want to bowhunt with a compound or traditional bow but instead want to use crossbows, and drawlocks that improve their chances at succeeding. These are the people who are getting pandered to, the ones who know the process well enough to get what they want, the people who refuse to follow rules and want things the easiest way possible. In both the BP and archery ranks, there are hunters fighting against these people.

" I DON" T make threats and inuendoes." Threat-" A time will come when outfitters with the backing of firearms hunters will have the clout to help appoint commissioners to this commission that are far more fairness minded." To me this says vote what I want or plan on getting voted out. I' m not saying you wrote it as a threat, but it could easily be perceieved as one. Innuendoes-" and this commission has seen fit to shirk it' s responsibilities in this area and bend to bowhunters demands knowing full well it is not a good idea." " In the area we hunt we have a sloppy bowhunter with one of the underpowered bowes, we are constantly cleaning up after this guy(s). Your degrogatory statements about bowhunters in both of these statements show that you only want to advance your season by slamming bowhunting. You imply all bowhunters are poor shots, slobs etc. You imply that your way of thought is the only way to vote. Please show me one regulation change that has benefitted only bowhunting with the special seasons.

IMO, the primary issue in the start of this thread by NoMercy was his belief that centerfire hunters were being cheated by the reduced late season. As I said before, the late season was started supposedly to reduce the herd size, not to give the centerfire hunters a longer season. Same with Unit 19. It' s purpose is for herd reduction within the urban corridor, where the highest number of car/deer accidents are reported. The only reason firearms were included in October in #19 was to get more hunters involved to remove more deer, to prevent additional breeding in those areas. They also retained the multiple game tags and late season in that area to further reduce the herd. See my earlier statement about management principles, your season is short because you guys are very effect. You in effect shoot yourself in the foot by being successful and harvesting large numbers of deer in short periods. We cannot all be successful each year, too many deer would be harvested and the herd would be wiped out.

In my 17 years of deer hunting, I have been successful and harvested nine deer. Two of those taken were during the two rifle seasons I hunted, the other seven in fifteen years of bow hunting. Personally, I switched to bowhunting to spend more time in the woods(which I enjoy more than harvesting a deer) and to challenge myself to a tougher method of hunting. I am not saying it easy for everyone to harvest a deer with a gun, you still have to possess the ability to shoot well, have good hunting habitat, have some woodsmanship ability, and limited pressure where you hunt. I have all of this, so it was nothing for me to be done hunting in less than a hour during rifle season.

I am very familiar with KDWP processes because I went to their offices to find out in person what they do instead of relying on what KBA, KLA, KOA, KFB, NRA, or any other organization or individual says they do. I recommend everyone try to make it a point to do this, I think you will find alot of what you think and have been told is pure close minded self serving BS. Yes, I am a second year member of KBA, in other words I make no impact on their decisions or actions. Once a year my vote is used to determine Officers on the Executive Council. Any decisions concerning lobbying or policy change is made by the EC. You have to be a senior member to hold an office, a level I will not qualify for until 2006. I have no intention of becoming a office holder, as I would be restricted to promoting only the wishes of the KBA- EC as a whole. To date, I applaud what the KBA has accomplished and do as an organization, they are at the front lines of all hunting issues, something other organizations do not do. I joined the organization because they fight for hunting issues in general, not just bowhunting. I am PRO-RESOURCE, and in the last few years our resource health has been pushed aside in favor of commercialism and tourist attraction revenue. We will probably never agree on several issues, but we need to work together to keep the Legislature from turning deer hunting into a rich man' s hobby.

As for my two sentences in response to MarkIIVT' s thread with the picture, my intent to was to show for every derogatory comment about bowhunting by gunners, there is one to match it from archers against them. I was hoping that with the comment you obviously missed, " Every form of hunting has its slobs, poor shots and poachers" I was acknowledging there are poor archery hunters and gunners, and that I felt it was wrong to use a tit for tat in a debate such as what has been started here.

Believe what you want Dave, you know nothing about me. I know what your pain is, you want a more liberal season so you are not so rushed to fill your tag. You would like to have fewer hunters competing with you for land access. You want to be able to hunt the rut. You feel that by using a pistol instead of a high power rifle, you should be granted a season of your own like the black powder and archery hunters got.

I hope people step back and take a look at what has happened in the last 7 years, and how it is has effected the sport and resource that took 35 years to get where it was when all this political garbage got started. If you don' t want to step up and be part of the solution, by all means continue being part of the problem.

Randy

Ruger1

Trebarker;

That was a good post and well said. Fair enough, however I do still believe the primary issue has been missed. I can say we can only agree to disagree, for the purpose of moving on.

This thread started with less time afield, true. The letter and threads presented are a culmination of many years of frustration with the current processes and lack of data. The less time afield is just the tip of the iceberg so to speak. Over 20 years ago I learned to hunt using bowhunting technique and applied it to handgun at the time they became legal. That is simply the most fun that I could possibly have. Many years I too walked away from the season skunked, but you couldn' t tell it because of the smile on my face. I have harvested 3 bucks in about 20 years of hunting, we are very selective of what we harvest. I have absoultely no problem walking away empty handed, because I know I am better in spirit from the oppurtunity to deer hunt. There are years we let many, many deer walk.

Let me try to give you just a touch of many firearms hunters frustration - I promise I will not hurt anyones feelings. Trophy deer come along so infrequently, when you finally see your chance come and go so many times because of an overzealous legality it is really hard to take. Especially when the legality is a continual event with no end in sight. Where we hunt there are a great number of Mule Deer. We see monster bucks year after year. These Mule deer are usually 10 points and above and body mass is phenomenal. We are not allowed to harvest these deer because there are less than 3500 any deer tags for fireams hunters statewide assigned to DMU' s, our chances at getting them are slim. (I know you know this Trebarker, but I would like to state this for people who don' t know - you have to have an any deer tag to harvest a Mule Deer). Like I said, in the past 9 years I have only had the Any deer tag twice, and I file religiously every year. Meanwhile a bowhunter gets this prize tag every year over the counter and year after year after year. Bowhunters get approximately 14,000 to 16,000 of these tags every year and aren' t restricted to any DMU or subjected to a lottery draw with point accumulations. Like I said this is just one, and I very truly do not understand why you don' t see this as one issue of inequity.

There are a lot of hunters that don' t hunt with rifles because it isn' t their cup of tea, simaliarly, even though I can and do shoot bow and arrow(and there are many like me), it isn' t somthing that I would chose to hunt with. I don' t understand why firearms hunters should have their time afield limited because of the weapon of choice. Just because a firearms hunter has more time afield doesn' t mean he is going to kill more deer. He can still only fill so many tags.

As far as the percieved threat - I' m sorry you see it the way you do. From my perspective I only see things the way they are going for fireaems hunters in Kansas. To me it used to be a threat, but now it is nothing more than economic prophecy.

I would also like to apologize for my passions and the strenght of my convictions. Few things are more important to me than Deer hunting and Deer management. Along with my passion for deer hunting is spending time with kids and friends shooting. I also have an indomiable passion for hard data (I' m an Engineer, go figure). I also have and undeniable passion for free enterprise. I think it is safe to say that we don' t see things the same at all. I don' t see things as rosie as you do for our sport, I happen to think the current system is very close to as bad as it can get and you think completely different, and that' s fair.

Make no mistake about it, much of what I have presented are valid concerns (whether you agree or not) and very much worth fighting for and I will continue to do so. That doesn' t make me uniformed or wrong anymore than it makes you uncaring or closed minded. By the way I have more letters written by other individuals, some hunt with both bow and arrow and rifle.

One thing you are wrong about, I NEVER wanted nor does anyone want to liberalize the system. If it' s good enough for bowhunters then it' s good enough for firearms hunters. No matter what you use you should be allowed to participate on an equal basis and that is not happening in the current system.

Good hunting to you all.

Dave

BOWFANATIC

" I don' t understand why firearms hunters should have their time afield limited because of the weapon of choice. Just because a firearms hunter has more time afield doesn' t mean he is going to kill more deer. He can still only fill so many tags."




Ruger1

I have a couple of questions for you.

1) If the Kansas gun season were a couple months long , how would they regulate the deer population? I' ll try and explain this question further. If your state DNR wants 400,000 deer killed in order to keep deer numbers under control and 700,000 hunters purchase a gun license for a two month season , how are they going to keep the harvest numbers from going way too high?


2) Are you saying that if the gun season isn' t lengthened to equal the bow season then you' d like to see the bow season shortened?

MarkIIVT

Doug I will answer those questions.

On the first one, with this years 50% success rate for centerfire this year it would be just a little under with raw numbers, but including unrecovered animals and illegal harvest (both of which are way difficult to quantify) you would be just at the numbers you suggest, you would hit that hypothetical target in that hypothetical time line. Changing from a 10-12 day season to even a month long season would change the nature of the Kansas centerfire hunting experience from opportunity hunting (Take the first best you see) to a very selective hunter. That would throw off the harvest ratio of Buck/doe that was historically 50/50 for centerfire and drive it way high. Your argument that an argement for a 2 month season for centerfire is a mischaracterization of my concern and not what I advocate. Gun season should not be lengthened to 2 months.

My concern is hunter density. I don' t want to take hunting away from anyone. If there is a high population, and a need for reduction, could the archery hunters slide us a week only in those situations to relieve the hunter density issues. After all the centerfire crowd does pay for a large portion of this program, and is called in to reduce the population (doe tags). Is there any other possible solutions to reduce the hunter density. As was stated before rifle hunters pound the area. That is what is going to continue to happen as land access becomes more limited. The response to this is to close the land down to centerfire hunting on those areas. Thus creating a known bad thing: a feedback loop.
The other possibility is that those who were used to higher success rates, could be influenced to start leasing, or quit hunting in Kansas altogether and save up for an out of state hunt. These things are on my mind, and seem to becoming my options.

Doug, promote bowhinting, promote your magazine, promote hunting. But your assessment of what is going on here rings a little hollow. It seems your state hunting is a little screwed up too and maybe you should concentrate on that instead of creating contention here. We are trying to communicate here in Kansas, by Kansans, who pay taxes here, etc., and we are trying to mend some fences and hopefully start seeing eye to eye on these things. If you contribute hypotheticals please make them realistic.

Trebarker

No apologies needed for saying what you feel and believe in, thats exactly what you are supposed to do in a forum.

Statewide any deer permits, yes thats what you get when you buy a Resident OC Bow tag, but how many bowhunters actually hunt mulies? I would be willing to bet a small group, VERY FEW. I have never flung an arrow at a mulie in my 15 yrs, I can only think of one of my friends that actually hunts mulies, and he goes to the mountains for them. Dave I do hear your complaint and desire, dont think I am arguing. Part of the reason KBA and a majority of its members are against t-tags and fought against them trying to start archery t-tags was because it would grant access to the mulies to NR hunters. We felt the mule deer population could not handle that added pressure AND, read this real close, we felt resident rifle hunters should be given more of an opportunity to hunt mulies before they allowed the NR access.

We will have to agree to disagree on several things I guess, but I am not an enemy.

Randy

MarkIIVT

Hey Randy,
Just missed the post. What do you think of a species tag system for mulies

Dana

KJr

The specifics of the data on success rates for firearms and archery tell us that there is no need for an extended firearms season. Firearms hunters achieve approximately the same success rates as bow hunters in 1/5 of the timeframe. I know that the numbers quoted are only a best guess based on a small sampling of the actual number of tags issued but thats another issue.

I also think the transferrable tag system is a joke that is allowing certain individuals to profit off of BS legislation. The state legislature needs to get out of the wildlife management business and let the trained professionals have the funding to run Parks and Wildlife.

How many of you are in favor of check stations or some kind of telecheck system? How about a % of sales tax going into a fund strictly for KDWP?